Blue - Shades and Variations of Blue

Shades and Variations of Blue

Blue is the colour of light between violet and green on the visible spectrum. Hues of blue include indigo and ultramarine, closer to violet; pure blue, without any mixture of other colours; Cyan, which is midway on the spectrum between blue and green, and the other blue-greens turquoise, teal, and aquamarine.

Blues also vary in shade or tint; darker shades of blue contain black or grey, while lighter tints contain white. Darker shades of blue include ultramarine, cobalt blue, navy blue, and Prussian blue; while lighter tints include sky blue, azure, and Egyptian blue. include (For a more complete list see the List of colours).

Blue pigments were originally made from minerals such as lapis lazuli, cobalt and azurite, and blue dyes were made from plants; usually woad in Europe, and Indigofera tinctoria, or True indigo, in Asia and Africa. Today most blue pigments and dyes are made by a chemical process.

• Blue is the colour of the deep sea and the clear sky. The harbour of Toulon, France, on the Mediterranean Sea.

• Pure blue, also known as high blue, is not mixed with any other colours.

• Navy blue, also known as low blue, is the darkest shade of pure blue.

• Sky blue or pale azure, mid-way on the RBG colour wheel between blue and cyan.

• Extract of natural Indigo, the most popular blue dye before the invention of synthetic dyes. It was the colour of the first blue jeans.

• A block of Lapis Lazuli, originally used to make ultramarine.

• Ultramarine, the most expensive blue during the Renaissance, is a slightly violet-blue.

• Cobalt has been used since 2000 BC to colour cobalt glass, Chinese porcelain, and the stained glass windows of medieval cathedrals.

• The synthetic pigment cobalt blue was invented in 1802, and was popular with Vincent Van Gogh and other impressionist painters.

• Cyan is made by mixing equal amounts of blue and green light, or removing red from white light.

• The colour teal takes its name from the colour around the eyes of the common teal duck.

• Egyptian blue goblet from Mesopotamia, 1500-1300 BC. This was the first synthetic blue, first made in about 2500 BC.

• Prussian blue, invented in 1707, was the first modern synthetic blue.

• Cerulean blue pigment was invented in 1805 and first marketed in 1860. It was frequently used for painting skies.